Chapter 239: Shouting Love in the Center of the Lord's Castle
Chapter 239: Shouting Love in the Center of the Lord's Castle
“Guwon…. Guwon….”
Now that the Apostle Appointment was a success, there was no longer any need to maintain our position.
I turned Sara halfway around to face me and immediately kissed her.
Sara cupped my cheeks with both hands, an expression of pure bliss on her face as she pressed her lips to mine.
“I’m… so happy….”
We lost ourselves in sex until Sara passed out.
The next morning, it was I, of course, who woke up first.
Last night was especially intense, after all.
Sara must have been thrilled about receiving the Apostle's Seal, because she was even more aggressive than usual, and things got incredibly heated.
She might sleep in even later than usual.
Well then, while I wait for Sara to wake up, I might as well check her status and skill windows.
We were both so fired up yesterday that I never got the chance to look.
Speaking of skill windows, for reference, Diana's was completely maxed out. Every single skill she could learn was at its maximum level. Truly befitting of the great Archmage.
In fact, she had learned so many skills that I gave up on checking them all and just closed the window.
If Diana wanted to learn any more skills, she'd probably have to develop them herself, just like I did with Saint's Sincerity.
Alright, let's see what our Sara's stats look like.
Name: Sara Auden
Race: Demonkin 21
Job: Hero 87 / Adventurer 46 / Archer 76 / Hunter 57
Level: 93
Health: 18000/18000
Essence: 8700/8700
Strength: 238
Durability: 198
Agility: 248
Stamina: 169
Intelligence: 179
Spirit: 187
Charm: 250
Bonus Stats: 2
Status: Normal
…This status window raised a whole lot of questions.
First, her stats were overwhelmingly high across the board.
What the hell is this? She's a lower level than me, but isn't her stat total higher than mine?
Well, no, if you include my bonus stats, I'm still higher, but her numbers are still ridiculously high.
And her Charm is already hitting the cap. Then again, considering how beautiful she is, I guess that part at least makes some sense.
Aside from that, while her Strength and Agility stood out, all of her stats were incredibly high and well-rounded.
And all of this was achieved purely through stat gains from related actions and job level-ups.
Among Sara's jobs, Hero was, of course, the highest.
Does that mean the Hero job, like the Saint job, increases all stats with every level-up?
What the hell? And it probably gets combat bonuses, too, right? Isn't that even better than being a Saint? The Hero job really is broken.
No, of course, if I were given the choice between Saint and Hero, I'd choose Saint without a moment's hesitation. Even if I were to die and be reborn a hundred times, I'd choose Saint every single time.
Still, I couldn't help but marvel at how overpowered the Hero job was.
And in Sara's skill window, there was a skill that explained these high stats.
Hero's Bloodline MAX
Passive Skill
A Hero born with the blessing of the War God. They grow faster than anyone through battle.
The growth rate for all abilities that can be developed through combat is drastically increased.
This was the only Hero skill in Sara's skill window.
The description was simple, but the skill itself was nothing short of broken.
This one skill explained everything: her incredibly fast leveling speed in combat, her rapid job level growth, and the large number of stat increases she gained from related actions.
Even her other skill levels were quite high.
It was no coincidence that she was able to imbue her arrows with mana even back when she was a low level.
From a gamer's perspective, these were the things that really caught my eye.
But I'm not a gamer anymore.
As Sara's man, there were other things that concerned me far more.
First, her name. Sara Auden. Until now, Sara had never once told me her last name.
I didn't think she was hiding it.
This was the girl with whom I'd successfully performed the Apostle Appointment. There was no way she'd hide anything from me.
Besides, after she got her revenge, she told me everything about her past.
That left only one possible answer: Sara didn't know her own last name.
So, should I tell her what her last name is?
But there was something I had to consider first.
Would Sara even want to know her last name?
From what I'd heard of her past, her father, who was also a Hero like her, was likely already dead.
She also said that many people had tried to use her father because of his title as a Hero.
Just looking at Sara, you could tell how incredible the Hero job was. There's no way ordinary adventurers could have exploited him.
That meant people in high places were involved, which in turn meant Diana would probably know about Sara's father, too.
In other words, if Sara had wanted to, she could have uncovered the truth about her family at any time.
But I'd never seen Sara consult Diana about anything like that.
Was it to hide the fact that she was a Hero?
That couldn't be it. Sara and Diana trusted each other more than that.
To put it simply, Sara had no intention of digging into her family name or her father's past.
If I just told her the name out of the blue, it might just make her worry and cause her unnecessary stress.
It seemed like this would require a bit more conversation.
Even if I decided to talk to Sara later about whether to tell her the name, there was still one more thing in her status window that bothered me.
To be honest, this was the part that bothered me the most.
Demonkin. What the hell kind of race was that?
Obviously, Sara wouldn't know if I asked her.
What would a girl who doesn't even know the full story of how her own father died know about it?
Still, it was an incredibly concerning race name.
Isn't it a race that doesn't fit the Hero job at all?
Normally, the Hero is the protagonist and the Demonkin are the enemy, right?
No, let's think about it the other way.
What if the Hero's bloodline has always been Demonkin?
Judging by the 'Hero's Bloodline' skill I just saw, it seems being a Hero is hereditary.
The name 'Demonkin' carries a certain prejudice, but thinking of it that way, it made a lot of sense.
The description for the Hero's Bloodline skill says that Heroes are born with the blessing of the War God.
The goddess worshipped in this world was definitely the Earth Goddess, not the War God.
It's not like the goddess who brought me here is the only god in this world, but I'd never heard of any other gods during the common knowledge lessons at the temple.
That led to one possible hypothesis.
What if Heroes are also from another world?
The goddess of this world abducted a Hero from a world ruled by the War God. Just like me.
And the race of the people living in that world is Demonkin.
Honestly, I have so few pieces of the puzzle that this is just forced speculation, but it sounds plausible, doesn't it?
At least, there didn't seem to be any theoretical contradictions.
…Ugh. What the hell is going on?
I was just planning to take a quick, thoughtless peek at her status and skill windows, but now my head was throbbing.
I thought she was just an incredibly beautiful country girl at first, but what is Sara's real identity?
It wasn't exactly Sara's fault, but my head hurt, so I petulantly poked her cheek.
“Mmm… Guwon…? …Ahm.”
The sensation woke Sara from her sleep.
Still half-asleep, she stared at me with dazed eyes, then noticed my finger poking her cheek, and promptly latched onto it, sucking gently.
“Whoa!”
“Hehe. What was that? Making a weird noise.”
“Anyone would make a weird noise if you suddenly started sucking their finger!”
“Well, that's what you get for poking a sleeping person's cheek.”
As she said that, she gave my finger a playful lick.
Y-You little vixen!
You haven't forgotten that my thing is still inside you, have you!
It made me want to give her insides a good pounding right then and there.
“But why were you making that face?”
“Huh? What face?”
“You were making a face that didn't seem like you. Is something bothering you?”
It seemed Sara hadn't just been staring at me because she was half-asleep.
Was she trying to cheer me up by being playful?
A wave of emotion washed over me, and I ruffled her hair roughly.
“Kyaa! What are you doing? Are you trying to brush it off with this? Or what? Is it something you can't even tell me?”
“No. Of course not.”
It's not really something to worry about.
It's just nothing... or maybe not. Since it's about our Sara, it's not nothing.
Anyway, it's not that I'm worried, I just got lost in my own complicated thoughts.
“Sara. Have you ever thought about looking more into your father?”
“Huh? Why are you suddenly asking that?”
“Well, you know. Diana probably knows. You might get an answer with just a single question. It's not like Heroes are common, right? So I was wondering if you weren't curious. He was used by people and then died, right?”
“…From what my grandfather said, probably…. But I don't really have any desire to know more.”
“Why? Aren't you curious?”
“It's not that I'm not curious at all. How he was used, how he died... of course I'm curious. But what would I do if I found out? Get revenge? …If Diana lent me her power, it would certainly be possible. But… I'm so sick of revenge. And to be honest, I have no desire to get revenge for a father I've never even met. …Am I being heartless?”
“…No. I think that's a perfectly normal thing to say.”
So that's how Sara felt.
It seemed that through her one act of revenge, Sara had realized how empty it was.
I'm glad I didn't just thoughtlessly tell her the name and start talking about finding clues about her father.
This time, I gently stroked Sara's hair and said.
“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up.”
“No, it's okay. I'm happy you were concerned for me. But why did you suddenly think of that?”
“…The thing is, your last name was on the status window I can see through the Apostle Appointment.”
“Huh?”
Sara tilted her head, not seeming to understand.
She's a pretty smart girl, so why can't she understand from just that?
“No, I mean, if I tell you your last name, your father…” “I know my last name.”
“Huh? What?”
“I said, I know my last name.”
“Then why didn't you ever tell me?”
“I-I wasn't hiding it on purpose. I just didn't say it because I'm not used to it. I only found out about it myself when I saw it on my Adventurer's ID Plate.”
…Ah. The Adventurer's ID Plate.
You idiot! Am I a complete moron?! How could I have forgotten about that?!
“Don't tell me you forgot? That your name is on the ID plate? Hehe. You i-di-ot.”
“Don't call me an idiot! If I'm an idiot, then you're an idiot for liking an idiot!”
Damn it. And here I was, racking my brain trying to be considerate.
I hurriedly took out my Adventurer's ID Plate and checked what was written on it.
Honestly, I'd never looked at it closely except for when I first got it. I never take it out unless I'm teleporting. It's possible to forget, you know.
Name. Level. Job. Status.
Good. Just as I thought, race wasn't listed on the Adventurer's ID Plate.
“Then, by any chance, do you know what a Demonkin is?”
“Huh? Demonkin? What's that?”
“What do you mean, what's that? It's your race.”
“…Huh?”
“Your race on the status window. It says Demonkin.”
“Hmm. That's a strange race. Is it because I'm a Hero? I've always just thought I was human. I wonder what's different from a normal person? I don't look any different on the outside.”
From the way she spoke, Sara seemed to have no concept of what a Demonkin was.
She was just purely curious, and she started touching her body here and there as if seeing it for the first time.
It's no use touching yourself like that; all you'll feel is your own supple, perfect body.
I know because I've touched, bitten, and licked every last inch of it.
But judging by her reaction, could it be that the term 'Demonkin' doesn't even exist in this world?
Even in my original world, the definition of 'Demonkin' varied from one piece of media to another, but wasn't it basically a term for vicious, devil-like beings?
I could hardly remember it ever being used in a positive context.
If that's the case, then the possibility that the term 'Demonkin' doesn't exist in this world grows stronger.
It's true that Sara is fundamentally a country girl and lacks a bit of common knowledge.
But even taking that into account, if Demonkin meant what I thought it did, there's no way she wouldn't know about it.
In the end, the answer about the Demonkin remained elusive, and the mystery only deepened.
Tch. It's useless for two people who don't know anything to put their heads together and think about it.
At times like this, there's only one thing to do: ask our clan's font of wisdom, the supreme Archmage Diana.
